


let's see what the ghost wants

by joeizmy



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ghosts, But it's okay, Depression, M/M, apparently i like writing angst, basically there's a lot of angst and crying, ghost!bucky, it gets kinda cute though, pre-serum steve, slight implied drug/alcohol addiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-15
Updated: 2014-11-15
Packaged: 2018-02-25 11:07:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2619515
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/joeizmy/pseuds/joeizmy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve never goes to war and never becomes Captain America. Bucky <i>does</i> go to war and never comes home (at least not as a human.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	let's see what the ghost wants

**Author's Note:**

> so i was rewatching cap 1 for the umpteenth time the other day and i don't really know how or when the idea came to me, but that night i just ran with it. i finished this in a flurry of raw emotions in less than 48 hours, so if there are any mistakes, those are on me, sorry!
> 
> pssst listen to [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9l44_n60QQ8) while reading and cry

_Dear Mr. and Mrs. James Barnes:_

_It is with deep regret that I write to inform you of the death of your son, Sergeant James B. Barnes, who died on 16 June 1943 as a result of wounds received in action against the enemy on the same day._

_News of your son’s death comes as a great shock to all who knew him, and his loss will be felt keenly in this regiment. I sincerely hope the knowledge that Barnes was an exemplary soldier and died while serving his country will comfort you in this time of great sorrow._

_Please accept our deepest sympathy._

_Sincerely yours,_

_Colonel Chester Phillips_

                The piece of paper rests on the kitchen table on top of last week’s newspaper. It’s crinkled and ripped on one corner, the ink smeared together in places. There’s a lot of tear stains, too. The late morning sun shines through the window, casting a dull yellow hue around the small, messy kitchen. Dirty plates fill the sink, a cupboard door is halfway open, and the dishrag lies in a puddle of water on the counter. Despite the bit of warmth the sunshine offers, the kitchen is cold.

                Steve stumbles through the doorway, bathrobe tucked tightly around his frail body, arms crossed over his chest to keep warm. He bends over to peer into the fridge, fumbling around for a moment before pulling out a bottle of milk. He pours himself a glass and downs a pill he takes from his pocket, rubbing at his head. He stands there in the middle of the kitchen for a few minutes, rubbing at his forehead. A car horn sounds outside and raised voices can be heard through the thin glass of the window. Steve blinks out of his daze and sits down at the table, setting down his glass and running his hands through his messy hair. He needs a haircut, he knows. He just hasn’t had the energy to get down to the barber for the past few days.

                He’s looking down at his hands now resting on the table, fingers thin and smeared with lead. He’s been drawing a lot lately. Wait, no, he hasn’t. He’s been scribbling a lot lately. Hand clenching the pencil so tight his knuckles turn white, dragging the point so roughly across the paper back and forth it rips. Not drawing. Steve doesn’t think he’ll ever want to draw again.

                The sunlight shines down on the kitchen table, the letter half in shadow and half in light. Steve glances up at it through his eyelashes. He hates that fucking letter. He hates it, he hates it with all his might. He wants to burn it. To shred it like all his other papers by scratching his pencil over the typed words over and over until he erases them from existence. If he can get rid of the words then maybe he can forget what they said and everything will be like it used to. Like the absence of it will suddenly make it not true. He knows better.

                A heavy sigh. Part of him tries to think of something else to do with his hands, but before he can stop himself he’s reaching across the table and taking the letter, hands shaking as his eyes begin to race over the words, reading the note over and over and over like he can’t catch his breath and this is all that can save him. Like if he runs fast enough the truth won’t ever catch him.

                The tears come. His breath catches in his throat and this time he really _can’t_ breathe. He stumbles across the room and grabs his inhaler from the drawer, flopping back down in the kitchen chair and trying to steady his breath. The tears keep coming and the sobs start to rack his body, small shoulders heaving. Giving up, he throws the inhaler against the wall angrily, burying his face in the letter. He cries onto the letter, resting his head on the table, hiding his face with his arms. He’s trying to hide from the world. Everything is spinning too fast.

                It’s been five weeks. He cries and cries and cries. The tears gradually stop and he wipes his nose on his bathrobe sleeve. His eyes fall to the letter, freshly smeared with tears, the inked words stark in comparison to the white sheet. A blemish, a mistake. It shouldn’t be like this. It should never be like this.

                He cries some more.

\- -

                The images come. He can never stop them. Mrs. Barnes, practically his second mother, face scrunched up and all shades of red, looking more broken than Steve had ever seen her. She had called the day after she and her husband received the letter to tell him. They didn’t talk long. A week later he saw her for the first time since. Since Bucky died. She came calling on him in the afternoon, a bag of groceries for him under her arm, and a small box. “Some things of his I thought…I thought you’d like to have.”

                Steve asks about the funeral. Mrs. Barnes says there’s not going to be one, not really, since they don’t have the body. It was never located. Lost, amidst the fight. There’s going to be a small, short service at the local church. The headstone’s already in place in the graveyard down the street. A headstone with Bucky’s name on it. The headstone to an empty grave.

                Steve tells Mrs. Barnes that he won’t be able to make it to the service. She says she understands. He wants to elaborate, to defend his actions in some way. He’d go if he could. But he can’t.

                He thinks she knows.

                They say goodbye. She hugs him. He hugs her back. She turns to leave but quickly turns back and grabs Steve in a real hug, holding him so tightly against her that he can’t breathe. She sobs into his hair. He rubs her back. After a few minutes, she pulls away, wiping at her face. She’s holding out a folded piece of paper.

                “Take it. I can’t keep it. Not anymore.”

                She hurries down the front steps of Steve’s apartment and disappears in the crowd. Steve unfolds the paper and reads it. His heart stops.

                He can’t keep it either.

\- -

                Another week passes. Then a month. And then another month. Life is going on all around Steve. He’s being dragged along with it, but he can’t really seem to get on board with it. He goes to work, a desk job at the community center. It keeps him busy. Keeps his mind off of things. He buys food. Buys new clothes when he needs to. Cuts his hair when his bangs start to hang in his eyes. He stays up too late and wakes up too late and drinks too much for someone with so many health problems. He never goes out. He never sees anyone. He leaves people alone and everyone seems okay with that. He hasn’t seen Bucky’s parents for a month now. He should probably stop by sometime but. He can’t find the strength to face the emptiness in Mrs. Barnes’ eyes again.

He’s _living_. But that’s about it.

\- -

                It’s a rainy Sunday morning. Actually it’s almost noon but Steve doesn’t really notice, or care. He lays in bed, covers tangled around his legs, staring up at the ceiling, listening to the steady sound of rain on the roof. He remembers all the times he and Bucky would listen to the rain together. Bucky loved the rain. Sometimes it’d be during a sleepover at Bucky’s house when they were kids. Sometimes it’d be under the awning of the movie theater when they arrived early and they couldn’t go in yet. Sometimes it’d be in Steve’s bed. Steve closes his eyes and takes several deep breathes. He tries not to think about the warmth of Bucky’s body beside his, the feel of the mattress dipping down under his weight, the feel of his heavy arm slung over Steve’s waist. Shit, too late.            The memories come flooding in with the rain and there is absolutely nothing Steve can do to block them out. To be honest, he’s not sure if he even wants to. While these memories are the ones he wishes he could forget, at the same time they’re the only ones keeping him going.

                And that’s really fucked up.

                A knock sounds on the front door. At least Steve thinks it’s a knock. It could just be the rain. Either way, he ignores it.

                It sounds again, a bit more persistent this time. Steve rolls his eyes slightly, agitated. In a way he’s thankful. It’s the strongest thing he’s felt for months now.

                He strains his ears, listening, trying to hear over the rain. Just when he thinks they’re gone, the knocking starts up again. Steve rolls his eyes properly this time. Now he is just annoyed. He doesn’t feel like answering it, he doesn’t want to see anyone, not now. They’ll go away in a minute.

                But they don’t go away. The knocking continues, sounding over the rain until Steve is sure the person’s knuckles are bloody by now. He feels strangely sorry for them, whoever they are. It’s not their fault he’s being such an asshole. He’s slightly surprised by the compassion he feels. He hasn’t felt that for a while.

                Sighing heavily, he pushes himself up off the bed and pulls on his bathrobe, stumbling down the hall past the kitchen to the front door. He undoes the lock and cracks the door open, squinting his eyes at the raindrops being blown into his face by a sudden gust of cold wind. The front stoop is empty. He glances down the street. A few people hurry by, tucked under umbrellas, but no one seems to have been at his front door.

                Steve only shrugs. He can’t be too bothered to get angry about it. He pulls the door shut and locks it again. Slumping down the dark hallway, he decides since he’s up to go ahead and get a cup of coffee. He’s been trying to ignore it but his stomach is starting to growl. He downs another pill for his seemingly-permanent headache as he waits for the water to boil, then pours himself a cup of pretty crappy coffee. He doesn’t mind that it’s awful. He drinks it anyways.

                He plods across the hall and into the living room. It’s darkest in there, a tree outside in the yard blocking the one window from what little light there is shining through the rainclouds. An old, faded couch sits in the middle of the room next to a coffee table, and Steve plops down in the middle of it, placing his mug on the table. He can stare at the ceiling and listen to rain in here just as good as he can in his room. Maybe better.

                The clock hanging on the wall by the window ticks steadily in beat to the rain, and Steve feels more at peace than he has for a long time now, more calm. It’s a nice feeling. He feels nice. Not great, not even good. Definitely not happy. But nice.

                He’s nodding off to sleep when he’s nearly startled out of his skin.

                “Ya gonna give me a good mornin’ kiss or not?”

                Steve shrieks more high-pitched than he cares to admit and jumps up off the couch, turning to face the voice. He bumps the coffee table with his knee, overturning his mug, the coffee spilling across the surface and onto the floor.

                Bucky’s smile flashes brightly in the dark room. “Oops, sorry. Gonna need to clean that up ‘fore it stains.” He’s leaning back in the chair in the far corner of the room, wearing the faded blue shirt and brown trousers and suspenders that lost their stretch that he always used to wear, before the war.

                “B-bucky?” Steve asks, shaking, incredulous. He can’t believe it. He’s finally gone mad. He should have expected it, to be honest.

                Bucky smiles again. “Yours truly, Stevie. How ya been?”

                Steve knows he might be mad, but his mind shouldn’t be talking to him so loudly, so _real_. _Bucky_ shouldn’t be sitting there, looking so real. “But you’re...you’re _dead_. Y-you’re not real-“

                “Well, I’m offended,” Bucky pouts out his bottom lip, sitting up in the chair and leaning forward, elbows on his knees. “Why’d ya say something like that?”

                Steve shakes his head slightly, mouth hanging open. His sock is wet from the spilt coffee but he barely even notices. “Look!” he splutters angrily. “Whatever this…this is-” he waves his hand at Bucky, “-whatever’s going on, stop it, it’s not…it’s not funny. I can’t- I can’t do this-” He rubs his hands roughly through his hair, heart pounding too fast in his chest.

                A look of concern crosses Bucky’s face and seemingly in one stride he stands up and crosses the room to Steve, reaching a hand out for his shoulder. Steve gasps loudly and jumps backwards, tripping and almost falling. Bucky reaches out to catch him but Steve waves his hands in front of him, stumbling back another step. “Stay away, don’t touch me! D-don’t…just don’t…”

                Bucky shakes his head, tilting it to look at Steve from a slight angle. The look on his face stabs Steve right in the heart. It’s so real. He feels so real.

                After a minute of staring at each other, Bucky throws his hands up in the air and turns back to his chair. “Okay, Stevie, take your time. I reckon it’ll take some gettin’ used to. You’ll come ‘round though.”

                Steve’s thankful _it_ moved across the room because his back was starting to hurt from leaning backwards away from him. _It_. Not him. It’s not Bucky, it’s not. Bucky died months and months ago, it was official with a funeral and everything. Whoever it is or _whatever_ it is better watch out, because Steve’s getting really fucking angry. Pretending to be Bucky, showing up here after almost half a year to pick at that wound…not a good move.

                Steve watches _it_ through squinted eyes as it rummages through some old newspapers piled on the floor. The…the _fake_ Bucky plops back down on the chair, throwing one leg over the arm to read a newspaper, and Steve furrows his brow, frowning. Bucky used to always do that. How did this thing know? How can he be _so much like Bucky_ but…he can’t be Bucky…he _can’t_ …

                Steve rubs his eyes with the heels of his hand, waiting for fake Bucky to disappear. But he doesn’t.  He isn’t sure how long he stands there, just eyeing it, but it must be a while because he’s suddenly aware that the rain has stopped. A single ray of sunshine finds its way through the bare branches of the maple outside and into the dingy room, streaking across Bucky’s face. Steve’s pretty sure an imagined Bucky from his head wouldn’t have that much detail. So then…what is…?

                “You…so you didn’t die?” Steve asks hesitantly, still cautious and angry. He doesn’t really ask it because he expects it to be true, he just has no clue what to say. He just has no fucking clue about _anything_.

                Fake Bucky looks up from the newspaper, eyes a startlingly bright shade of blue as they meet Steve’s. Steve finds it hard to make eye contact for too long. A sad smile grows on Bucky’s face as his gaze shifts to the floor. Maybe it was hard for him to keep eye contact, too.

                “Nah,” he says after a moment, voice quieter than before, scratchier. “Me and my buddies, we had ‘em.” He shakes his head.  “It was ‘sposed to be just another mission, we’d done dozens like it before. But the enemy, these guys had like…weird guns that just…I don’t know, evaporated you, they’d just shoot ‘em at ya and then…I had this real big Nazi down on his back, I had him. I had him, Steve, I did. And the next thing I know I feel like I’m fallin’. I see this soldier behind me, he’s got one of them guns and it’s smokin’, pointed straight at me. And then…then there’s nothin’. It’s just. Dark. I’m alone.”

                Steve hasn’t moved from his spot standing in the spilt, cold coffee, doesn’t think he could if he wanted to. These words being spoken in the same room he and Bucky used to play in, from the same person- well, he _looked_ like the same person- who he used to laugh and talk with…it’s killing him. He wants to tell this Bucky to stop, to not talk about things he doesn’t know shit about, but at the same time he can’t stop listening. This Bucky even _talks_ the same way, he swallows in all the right places and the pitch rises and falls on the right words. Steve’s hanging onto every word. Has he really missed Bucky _this_ much?

                Bucky shakes his head again, newspaper falling onto his lap. “I had him on the ropes. I did.” His eyes should never look that sad.

                Steve’s lips part but he can’t find the words to say. Part of him wants to comfort this Bucky, to just embrace him, real or not, imagined or not. This is as close as he’ll ever be to Bucky again, even if it _is_ just in his head. “You…it wasn’t your fault,” he finally says, voice barely above a whisper.

                Looking up quickly at Steve, as if he had forgotten he was there for minute, Bucky smiles slightly. “It wasn’t ‘sposed to be like that. I was ‘sposed to come home an’…an’ be with my parents an’ be with _you_ an’…an’ grow old-” he laughs fondly, “-old an’ gray an’ wrinkled, with lots of little grandkids runnin’ around.” Bucky nods, shifting slightly in his chair. “Maybe…it wasn’t my fault but. I should have come home. I should have come home.”

                Steve can’t stop himself from walking around the couch to stand by the chair in front of this Bucky. Bucky looks up, surprised. Steve’s eyes are watering and he hates that. He’s cried so much recently he thought he couldn’t cry anymore. But just when he thinks he’s fine, that’s when the tears come again. His legs give way and he collapses onto the floor in front of Bucky, grabbing onto his knees and resting his head on them. The sobs rack his shoulders, hands fisting the fabric of Bucky’s pants. Between heavy breaths he chokes out a few words. “Y-you’re…home now…”

                Steve can feel gentle fingers brush against his cheek, familiar hands stroking his hair comfortingly. Over the sound of his sobbing, he can just make out that same quiet intake of breath, that same sound Bucky always used to make. God, it’s so _real_. It’s all so real.

                Steve cries into Bucky’s lap. He cries, and cries and cries.

\- -

                Steve wakes up an hour later, huddled on the floor with his head resting on the seat of the chair at an awkward angle. Sitting up straight, back aching, he rubs at his eyes. His bangs are damp. He wonders vaguely what time it is, what _day_ it is. He pulls himself tiredly to his feet. _Why is my sock wet?_ He curses as he almost slips in the spilt coffee. Then it hits him.

                He spins around, eyes frantically searching the corner of the room where Bucky had been. He turns again- slipping in the coffee once more- and looks around the rest of the room, straining to see the darker corners. No Bucky. Steve hears himself let out a quiet sigh. He feels worn out from crying, mind still dazed from a restless sleep, and all he finds himself really wanting is to see Bucky’s face again. Bitter disappointment floods through his chest as he drops his gaze to the floor. _Aw, spilled coffee. Gotta clean that up._

Steve pads down the dim hallway to the kitchen. _Where’s that towel?_ He rummages around a drawer, trying to clear his head. It’s too full with Bucky to think of anything else.

                Out of the corner of his eye, he spots the towel lying on the floor underneath the table. He bends over to pick it up.

                “Ya still take cream _and_ sugar in your coffee?”

                Steve bumps his head on the table he stands up so quickly. Bucky’s standing at the counter, back to Steve, pouring a fresh brew of coffee into two mugs, steam rising. “Cream _and_ sugar, Steve?” Bucky looks over his shoulder at him.

                Steve splutters for a minute, trying to form words, his mind twisting over itself. “You’re h-here, again!? I thought you’d…I thought I’d just imagined…but you’re not…you’re not _real_ -”

                Bucky laughs, stirring a couple of spoonfuls of sugar into the mugs. Steve racks his brain, trying to remember exactly what had happened before with him and Bucky. “But you…I came in here and you weren’t here…I just woke up and you were gone…”

                “Ah, I was recharging,” Bucky stirs a spoon around in one of the mugs and holds it out to Steve. “I have to do that now and again.”

                Steve hesitantly takes the mug, the warmth seeping through his cold fingers. It seemed real enough. Steve doesn’t think an imagined Bucky could hand him a real cup of coffee. “Recharging?”

                Bucky takes his own mug and turns around to face Steve, leaning against the counter. “Yeah. Instead of sleepin’ and eatin’ I kinda just disappear for a while. I’m still there, like, but ya can’t see me.”

                Steve just stares at Bucky.

                Bucky’s eyes look up to the ceiling and he sighs slightly. “Durin’ that battle, after the soldier shot me an’ everything went dark…after that, it was kinda like wakin’ up. I was a bit…disoriented, I couldn’t really remember what had happened an’ all. The battle was still goin’ on around me, so I called over to a buddy of mine, but he didn’t say nothin’. Just kept on fightin’. After a bit I realized, _they couldn’t see me._ I was dead, Stevie.”

                Bucky sees the disbelieving look on Steve’s face and lets out a quiet chuckle. “Yeah, I know. You think I’m crazy. Heck, you think _you’re_ crazy. But it’s true. Took me all this time to get back over here. Couldn’t just pop across the Atlantic, can’t swim either apparently. Hitched a ride on a supply boat- well, turns out it was carrying corpses, not supplies. The corpses of soldiers who died for this country…and ya know what, my body wasn’t on board, ‘cause they couldn’t _find_ my body. _That’s_ why I’m a ghost, Steve. I’m gone, there’s no _me_ to bury. So I’m stuck here. Can’t move on from this world without bein’ laid to rest.”

                Steve finally speaks up. “I don’t know if you’re just messin’ with me or _what_. But that’s _awful_. That’s a really awful thing to say.”

                Bucky shrugs. “I know it is. But it’s true.”

                Steve pulls a chair away from the table with his foot and sits down, partly because he’s tired from standing and partly because he thinks he’s going to faint. He doesn’t know what the fuck to think. “If that’s all true, how come I can see ya? Ya said your soldier buddies couldn’t, so then how come-”

                “Oh, Stevie,” Bucky smiles, shaking his head. “You…you _know_ me. You can see me because I’ve always been most real to you. No one else in the whole world knows me like you do.”

                “Your parents-”

                “They don’t know me like that.” Bucky raises his eyebrows and gives Steve a look. Steve knows what he’s implying.

                “Oh.”

                “Oh.”

                “So a guy has sex with someone an’ then he can see ghosts. Nice.”

                Bucky laughs and it hits Steve how gray his life has been without Bucky in it. God, he’s missed him.

                “Other people can see me if I want ‘em to,” Bucky explains, waving his free hand. “But I’m not there, not really. I look kinda…well, kinda see-through.”

                “Like a ghost,” Steve suggests.

                “Like a ghost,” Bucky agrees.

                Steve nods, dropping his head to stare into his mug of coffee. He can see his reflection on the creamy surface. “You’re…you’re tellin’ the truth?”

                Bucky’s voice is quiet when he finally replies. “I’ve never lied to ya, Stevie.”

                Steve closes his eyes when Bucky says his name; it’s been so long. He doesn’t know what to say. He fingers the handle of his coffee mug, then glances at Bucky out of the corner of his eye. “Can you even drink that then? If you’re a…a ghost?” He nods at the mug in Bucky’s hand.

                Bucky drops his head and stares into the mug. He smiles and gives a small shrug. “Forgot.”

                That makes Steve really, really sad. He can feel it down in his gut.

                They both remain silent for a long time, the coffee slowly growing cold. It’s Steve who finally speaks up.

“You…you gonna hang around for a while?”

                Bucky looks up at Steve’s voice, watching Steve watch his coffee.

                “’Cause…because there’s still room for two here, ya know.” Steve looks up to find Bucky already looking at him.

                A crooked smile appears on Bucky’s face and Steve swears he’s never looked more beautiful. “Was hopin’ you’d say that.”

\- -

It’s been a month and things are better. Still not great, but they’re getting there. Steve still finds it hard to sleep at night. But now he’s got Bucky there to make it easier. When he’s tossing and turning, he’ll feel a cool hand on his arm, stroking him comfortingly. If he cracks open an eye in the middle of the night after a bad dream, he’ll see the blue of Bucky’s eye staring at him. Bucky doesn’t sleep, not anymore, but every night he lies down beside Steve and holds him till he falls into an uneasy sleep.

Steve still gets sad a lot. But now when he’s moping in the living room, Bucky will come and take the bottle away from him so he won’t drink too much. He’ll play with his hair and tell him funny stories until he gets a smile out of him. Sometimes Mrs. Barnes will come over to see Steve and Bucky will have to disappear for a while.  Those are the times when _Steve_ comforts _Bucky_. It nearly kills Bucky, being so close to his mother but not being able to be with her, to comfort her. Every time she visits Steve, never failing, she’ll get a bit teary about Bucky and Steve will have to rub her back until she quiets down.

She stops by for one of these visits on a late November afternoon. She brings a scarf she made for Steve to get him through the winter, and a blueberry pie. Steve listens politely as Mrs. Barnes shares the usual gossip with him: a nice girl has moved in next door to the post office and she could introduce him if he likes, there’s going to be a sale on pastries at the bakery she works at next Tuesday. And then, quite suddenly, like it always is, she goes quiet, a thoughtful, faraway look in her eyes. She starts crying. Steve pats her back. After a few minutes, she calms down and says goodbye to Steve, sniffling as she heads for the door. She’s reaching for the doorknob when she jumps and gasps. Steve, alarmed, asks her what’s wrong.

“N-nothing, it’s nothing, dear, I just…I just had a sudden chill is all…” She smiles, but it doesn’t reach her eyes.

Steve knows it’s Bucky.

After she leaves, Bucky appears in front of Steve. His face is red and puffy, eyes wet. “I just needed to see her, to touch her,” Bucky cries onto Steve’s shoulder. “I can’t stand it, I just…miss her so much…” he breaks down into sobs, holding onto Steve for dear life. Steve never knew ghosts could have such strong grips.

It’s Bucky’s turn to cry now, cry and cry and cry.

\- -

                “You _better_ get a good one, okay, or I swear I’ll…I’ll do something drastic!”

                “You’re so full of talk,” Steve laughs, pulling on his coat.

                “No, I mean it,” Bucky wraps Steve’s scarf snuggly around his neck and pulls his hat down past his ears. “Look real hard an’ bring the best one home.”

                “Home,” Steve repeats, finally agreeing that this was home.

                Bucky flicks Steve’s nose. “Punk.”

\- -

                Two hours later, Steve stumbles back through the front door and into the hallway, dragging a small Christmas tree with him. Snow flurries around the hallway, and Bucky appears in the middle of it.

                “Snow! It’s so pretty, I wish I could feel how cold it is…”

                Steve shivers as he kicks the door shut. “No, you don’t.”

                Bucky takes hold of one end of the tree. “Hm…I _guess_ ya did an okay job of pickin’ her out. Not bad.”

                “It was almost all they had left,” Steve strips his gloves off and drops them to the floor. “Day ‘fore Christmas Eve is _not_ the time to go Christmas shopping.”

                There’s a small fire in the fireplace in the living room, and Bucky has cleared a spot by the window for the tree. The snow is blowing wildly outside. It all feels almost perfect. More perfect than Steve ever reckoned it’d feel a month ago.

                They spend the rest of the day decorating the tree together. Bucky makes hot chocolate for Steve and they put on an old Christmas record. When night falls and the room is all dark except for the firelight, Bucky grabs Steve around the waist and rocks him back and forth. Steve complies readily, leaning against Bucky, head pressed to his chest where he should hear a heartbeat but doesn’t.

It’s okay though. It’s okay because Bucky’s here with him and Steve’s wearing one of his old sweaters that’s too big, and Bucky’s hands on him feel warm and strong and the fire is blazing. The snow casts a dim light around the room, the music makes everything feel like Christmas. _Bucky_ makes everything feel like Christmas. It’s okay because Steve has started to draw again, pictures of the city and the Statue of Liberty and of Bucky. Bucky makes him hot chocolate almost every day and he drinks that instead of another beer. He goes to work and sometimes gets yelled at and he tosses and turns at night, but Bucky’s always there waiting for him and that helps him to go on, to keep moving forward.

 _Funny, isn’t it?_ Steve feels Bucky’s hands run up and down his back as they sway together. _The past is helping me look to the future._

He lifts his head up, lips finding Bucky’s. Bucky’s eyes shine blue.

\- -

                Bucky is dead. Steve isn’t. Steve gets cold. Bucky doesn’t. They both cry a lot.

                And yet here they are. They’re home and they’re together, and every day that Steve wakes up and sees Bucky lying beside him, he realizes anew how that is all he has ever really wanted. And he thinks maybe- _maybe_ \- one day things _will_ be all okay again.

                And at the end of the day, all Steve knows is, Bucky couldn't have picked a better person to haunt.

**Author's Note:**

> wow, why so angsty!? i'm sorry, i don't know, there's something wrong with me. i hope you liked it anyways! feedback is always super appreciated!


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